Payroll has critical role in business continuity

When Alan Sinclair looks back on the massive power outage that struck Ontario, Quebec and much of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States a decade ago, he is proud of the emergency plan his organization had in place.

At the time, Sinclair was a payroll project leader at Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and had contributed to the business continuity plan OPG created should there ever be an incident that could halt business.

“As everyone was heading home in the afternoon, that’s when the power went out,” Sinclair recalls, adding it was a Thursday and payroll was scheduled to be completed the following day. “(The payroll department) had 24 staff who didn’t know what was going on. So, as part of the company’s business plan, our senior manager was contacted by his senior management and we were told, ‘Don’t go into the office... the office will not be open.”